Projected Wanderings

Alice was back from the midwest, where Vicky is also from, and was sharing stories about places visited. I was jealous, having had precious little time to tour within the US, and hence my bizmo based fantasies, of making a living as a roaming gnu math teacher, ready to give schools a legup by cluing them in, giving them chanops.

South Dakota was mentioned, Iowa, Idaho. Water parks were a theme. I could see Tara having some fun, or me, like Homer Simpson, stuck in some tube, wondering if they'd ever find me (I'll posit a happy ending on this one). Mount Rushmore. Lots of wide open vistas. Wall Drug Store. Chief Crazy Horse (see the front page of today's Oregonian).

I stomped some bugs in my desert of code (FoxPro) this hot summer's day. I dined again in the Fortress of Evil (that's like Klingon for "great watering hole") on my lunch break, and savored the LL A/C. I probably had too much Diet Pepsi though. I should move to more juices... OK, now it's a Red Bull (yummy). I also drink "cow juice" (milk, usually 1% organic, not ultra-pasturized), less often anything goat.

I've continued debating the role of public education in US society @ Math Forum, arguing that it's a feeder circuit, used to recruit new talent into public service, even as it serves the needs of [some] private industries, small business, other participants in interstate commerce.

To enroll in public school is to gain experience in operating the USA's democratic institutions from the inside. Our state supported curricula are designed to run "close to the kernel" to help protect the future vitality and viability of our favored userland. In laymans' terms: your public education system is here to serve you by giving you opportunities for success both in private enterprising and in serving the public (you needn't think either/or here).

On edu-sig, I've been chatting about our hot weather, and my recent magazine reading, and also about the magic square and cube project, a focus of Martin Gardner's. My proposed data structure for the recently discovered 5x5x5 one is probably not the most appropriate. A few lines of code could fix that.

Speaking of hot weather, I just grabbed our Daewoo portable A/C from the garage and connected it up in Tara's room, so now we're contributing even more to the record megawattage pig-out we Portlanders are engaged in, as we soar through 102 degrees. I wonder what a domed over village might save, if it went with central air. Something for us gnu math heads to figure.

24 hours later: the Daewoo is dead.